Dice-K: Put to The Test

 This evening's Sox-Yankees pitching matchup is Daisuke Matsusaka and "Ace" C.C. Sabathia.

Dice-K's previous two outings,both wins have been acceptable since he has returned from the DL.

This is Dice-K's first start against the Yankees this season, his performance will be a tell tale sign of whether or not he can pitch well in the postseason.

In his starts against the Red Sox this year,  Sabathia is 2-1 with a 2.95 ERA in three starts. His best outing against Boston was at Yankee Stadium on Aug. 8, when he fired 7 2/3 shutout innings.

Both teams have a magic number of 3, The Red SOx for the Wild Card and the Yankees for the division.

These are the numbers for the season of both pitchers:

Sabathia: 18-7 3.31 ERA, He has won his past ten starts but it is usually because of his run support.

Matsuzaka: 3-5 6.80 ERA, Throw away his numbers before his last two starts Dice-K is only going upward.

Victor Martinez is currently on a 24 game hitting streak a career high.

DH David Ortiz has homered in his past three games.

Hideki Okajima will be missing the rest of the series because of pain his right side, nothing to worry about. However Micheal Bowden and Manny Delcarmen are two wild cards still in the bullpen to think about. Both of them are pitching to be in the pen for the postseason and Delcarmen has not been at his best.